Lochside 10 Year Old - Circa 1990

Lochside distillery started life as an 18th century beer brewery. The site was converted into a grain distillery in 1957 and two pairs of pot stills for malt whisky production were added in 1961. Lochside was therefore one of only a handful of Scottish distilleries capable of producing a single blend whisky, where both malt and grain spirits are from the same distillery.

Grain distillation was discontinued at Lochside in the early 1970s and in modern times only a handful of Lochside’s extraordinary single blends have been bottled, most notably by indie bottlers Scott’s Selection. The distillery’s single malts were also generally excellent, with a prominent fruity character often enhanced by sherry casks. Sadly, Allied Distillers bought and closed Lochside in 1992, and then sold the site in 1997 to a property developer who demolished Lochside soon afterwards - a sad end for a wonderful distillery.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.